Monday, February 9, 2015

10 WAYS TO GET REVIEWS by author Alinka Rutkowska

Now that my book is out in the market, I am always on the lookout for ways to garner reviews. One of my friends, author Alinka Rutkowska, graciously offered to provide a guest post for my readers with tips on getting book reviews. She also is welcoming her latest book release, CINDERELLA'S SECRET SLIPPER, this month. Be sure to check out her book trailer link following this fabulous post:

10 Ways to Get Reviews

by Alinka Rutkowska

Reviews are one of the first elements customers look at before deciding whether
to purchase your book. The more reviews your title has, the stronger the social
proof that it’s a product of value. The more Amazon reviews you have, the more its algorithm will take
notice and promote your book for free. There is no reason why your title should
drown in the ever expanding book ocean. Below are 10 things you can do right
now to get those reviews.

Readers' Favorite (https://readersfavorite.com/book-reviews.htm) offers you a badge you can use if you
get a 5 star review and they offer both free reviews and paid express packages.
So it will cost you between $0 to $199 and it will take between a few days to a
few months.

Is paying worth it? A good editorial
review from a professional institution gives your book instant credibility and
something you can proudly display in your Amazon “Editorial Reviews” section.

Is there a better way to spend 400
bucks? You certainly can get a review avalanche for this price if you just send
your print book to interested reviewers, and many will accept a digital format,
which costs you nothing at all. But how do you find these people? Read on.

2) Review Swaps

Authors often swap reviews. I've done it
a couple of times but there is always one problem: what if they give you 5
stars and you only want to give them 3? It could also be the other way around.
These are a little bit tricky but if you want to try it out, join any Facebook
group for authors and try connecting with people one by one. I think it works
best with authors writing in the same genre.

3) Blog
Tours

These are very popular. You pay an
administration fee to a company, which organizes a blog tour for you and your
book and as a result you will get some reviews. I've done two with two
different companies and my results varied. One of them delivered all the posts
and reviews (but I paid $400!) whereas the other one (which seemed better
organized and had a better website) did not. You have to schedule these well in
advance, prepare guest posts and interviews, so it's a lot of work but you will
get some reviews (depending on how many blog stops you pay for!).

These tours often give you exposure but
not sales. It can be a good start if you’re brand new and it will help you
connect with people. For your next book, you could contact these bloggers
directly, mentioning that they’ve already featured you ;)

4) Connecting with Bloggers 1 by 1

If you want to bypass the administration
fees you can try contacting bloggers by yourself. Google a competitor's book
"+review" or "+blog tour" and you will then get a list of
bloggers who featured it. You can then try contacting them one by one. Many of
them will ignore you but some will reply and post reviews. It's a numbers game.
The more people you contact, the more reviews you'll get.

5) Amazon Top
Reviewers

How great is it to get reviewed by an
Amazon top reviewer? Did you know that they actually compete with one another
to review more books and get more likes for their reviews? Go to http://www.amazon.com/review/top-reviewers, look for those reviewers who review
your genre and ask them to review your book. Mind your manners. Often once
you've established a relationship with such a reviewer they will be there for you
for all your future book launches. Warning: this can be time-consuming.

6) Author Marketing Club Reviewer
Grabber

There’s a very handy
tool you can use if you are part of the Author
Marketing Club (premium
feature.... http://authormarketingclub.com/) called the “Reviewer Grabber” and it allows you to run an Amazon
search of reviewers who left a review on any of the books you put in the search
box. I typed in “children’s books,” chose the ones I was interested in and I
got a list of over 100 reviewers, with more than half listing their email
addresses and the rest giving away their websites.This was so much faster than
going through the Amazon Top Reviewers one by one!

7) Organically (Call to Action within
Book)

Of course you can get your book
published and hope for the best but my experience tells me that only 1% of book
buyers will bother to leave a review. The first book I’ve ever published got 20
reviews after 2000 purchases.

How can you increase this percentage?
Simply ask. At the end of the book add a call to action, asking people to leave
a review. I do this in the form of a funny limerick. If you’re traditionally
published, negotiate this with your publisher and make sure it’s in your
contract.

You can ask your publisher to run an “Early
Reviewers” giveaway at LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com) or you can run a “Member Giveaway” as
an author on the same site. The great thing about is that you don’t even have
to offer a print book! You can give away up to 100 digital versions and then
you just send them off to all who requested your book. It’s expected that they
write a review in return.

10) Cracking Goodreads for Reviews
(My Favorite)

This is the least utilized and the most
effective method. Goodreads seems scary to many authors since it’s not very
user-friendly and you might waste lots of time there without getting any
results. I've spent countless hours on Goodreads trying to figure out how to
use it to build my readership and I finally cracked the code.

There are two very effective ways you
can use to get reviews from passionate readers on Goodreads. One involves
creating a giveaway and the other one doesn’t. Both allow you to build a
mailing list, which should be every author’s number one objective when creating
an author platform.

"Cinderella's
Secret Slipper" is a story of our favorite princess who more than anything
else wants to wear her famous glass slippers to her son's birthday party. But
she can't because her four-year-old smashed one of them in an attempt at
killing a mosquito on the wall. Where is she going to get a glass slipper now?